Rich

When I saw that the hands-on demo for Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds at Summer Games Fest was a full hour long, I was sort of taken aback. An hour? For a kart racer? Our time is pretty limited at these events, and in the interest of trying to squeeze as much in as possible one always tries not to spend more time with a game than is strictly necessary to get a broad idea of what it’s trying to do and how it’s coming together.

Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds

A few minutes into the hands-on, I understood. Sonic’s latest racing outing appears to land in that unique category of game that is first and foremost designed for children but nevertheless has an adult depth and complexity should you wish to fully engage. It’s that Pokémon sauce; you can play this like a super simple adventure for kids, or you can get into the weeds on properly competitive nonsense.

“We have a Sonic development team working together with a Sega arcade racing development team,” explains Takashi Iizuka, the long-time Sonic producer who in the last decade has been elevated from the lead on a floundering mascot franchise to the beloved steward of one of Hollywood’s latest faves.

“They’re combined into this one big team. The arcade racing team has tons of experience making arcade racers, making sure they’re balanced, making sure there’s that tight competition – but also making sure it’s a fair and balanced race,” he adds.

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Basically, it aims to be the best of both worlds. It fits with the theme of the game: worlds colliding. That might be represented by Sonic and friends being joined by characters from Minecraft. Equally, though, it’s represented by Sonic developers who have honed their skills making games for kids being joined by arcade racing sickos who have worked on stuff like Initial D or Daytona.

The result is a bit bonkers, honestly. The racing is tight and smooth, and that makes sense. Iizuka-san tells me that the core racing is built first, without any of the other nonsense on top. The logic, Iizuka says, is that if you want to race perfect lines practically like this is a simulation, you can – but it’s still a kart racer at heart. Then they started to layer additional things on top. I imagine the team asking Iizuka: ‘how many mechanics do you want, boss?’ and him smirking back: ‘Yes.’ Chances are if you fondly remember a system from a past Sonic racer, it’s present here – and some.

You pick a character, you pick a kart. But the vehicles run the gamut greatly, and can be adjusted, tweaked, and adapted in the menus to give you exactly the sort of ride you want. These customizations can be cosmetic or of the type that’ll impact speed and handling. Beyond customizing vehicles, a special perk-style system allows you to slot special bonuses into a card that can then be equipped before you race. This allows you to tailor your experience.

If you’re a racing fiend, you might want perks that do things like increase the power of your drifting boost or how quickly it charges. Meanwhile, a player who wants to feed the chaos might instead pick bonuses that increase how many items they might get when they hit an item box, or make the act of hitting other racers actually beneficial.

SEGA’s arcade racing pedigree shines through. | Image credit: Eurogamer / SEGA

Before I even hit a race I can see why they gave us an hour, then. With the options available – which is surely a fraction of what’ll be in the final game – I could’ve spent thirty minutes just tabbing through the menus to optimize my racer. Kids might ignore a lot of this – but obsessives and competitive types could get great joy out of this depth. High-level online should be a blast.

The big gimmick in races is how the concept of laps essentially dissolves thanks to the titular world-crossing mechanic. Essentially, a grand prix will consist of four races, each with a ‘hero’ track. Lap one is a tour of the advertised track for that race, but at the end of that the player in pole position will be given a choice between two portals. Whichever they drive through determines which track you will seamlessly be transported to for your second lap. The third lap then returns to the original track for the finale.

It’s a clever idea, and ties in with all sorts of other mechanics. If you’re in a vehicle that does well on water for instance, you could get a major boon by deliberately picking a portal to a track you know well with lots of water. It also mixes things up massively – you could play the same Grand Prix repeatedly and not see the exact same track configuration twice for a while. I also love how this mechanic is utilized for the fourth and final race of a GP, which becomes a victory tour of the three flagship tracks for that GP, each getting a single lap with you teleporting between them.

There’s a sense of chaos to how it works, and the traditional lap structure sublimates into the madness. You have to adapt to whatever happens on lap two, even if you’re the racer up front making the track choice. It’s a curious and amusing parallel to Mario Kart World too. My feeling is that both developers decided they wanted to move away from traditional lap-based racing. For Mario, Nintendo decided on that world tour, road-tripping aspect. Sonic is still entirely track-based but instead has you dynamically teleporting from one track to another mid-race. Both are interesting solutions.

This is going to be one for kids to enjoy and for ‘experts’ to be competitive with. | Image credit: Eurogamer / SEGA

But whereas Mario Kart World keeps its most chaotic moments to the mind-boggling Knockout Tour mode, Sonic is at full throttle all the time. It’s the kart racing equivalent of an extremely excited child after a whole lot of sugar. Items fly, rings are constantly being spewed out and picked back up, you’re drafting, drifting, and tricking for boosts, obstacles shatter and scatter, characters trade quips, my car is a plane now, then a boat, and oh god here comes the second world crossing– it’s mad. The screen is an explosion of stuff going on, and between races a deep layer of customization awaits those who seek it.

It’s a lot. In fact, playing the game I can see why when it had a closed beta test scuttlebutt that some players found it too intense. Maybe it’s been toned down for this build from that time, as I did find it manageable, if a sensory onslaught. But the chaos very much seems the point of the design – and it’s a great contrast to the more calm vibes of Mario Kart World, especially its free roam.

The joy here is without doubt in that pure racing, though – the carefully-crafted cake that oodles and oodles of technicolor over-the-top icing has been put atop of. This is a Sega Arcade racer, with the mechanical depth and tightened controls you’d expect from that lineage. If you can turn off the items and such, which is a pretty standard option in these sorts of games, you may even choose to play it that way. It’s also a mad party game to boot.

I’ll finish on a comparative thought. I’m definitely now newly excited for Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds. That one-hour hands-on worked for me. But my excitement has been increased, not tempered, by the direct comparison between my hour with CrossWorlds and my four hours with Mario Kart World on the flight over to Summer Game Fest. I like World well enough, but despite its new design ideas I somehow felt it a little safe, a little calm, at least outside of Knockout Tour. It may be that Sega might once again do what Nintendon’t – and CrossWorlds might scratch that chaotic casual multiplayer itch instead.

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